VANCOUVER — As one of the latest inductees into the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame (Class of 2012), Howard Kelsey can remember his first introduction to the B.C. high school boys basketball tournament.

It was 40 years ago this month, at the PNE Agrodome, when the Grade 10 student from Point Grey Secondary was a spectator and in doubt about his abilities to play at the elite high school level. He wanted to use the Triple-A tournament as a gauge to see how far he had to go.

“I was reluctant, at that point, because I was just an average player in Grade 10,” Kelsey recalled this week. “It was a measurement to see if I could play.”

In 1973, the Oak Bay Bays were in their ascendancy under coach Don Horwood, and the Victoria school would go on to make five appearances in the B.C. final in the 1970s, winning three of them (back-to-back, in 1973-74, and again in 1977).

Watching the Bays, Kelsey re-imagined how good he could be, if he worked at it. And he did. He went on to become MVP of the 1975 tournament, played nearly 400 games for Canada’s national team, made two Olympic appearances and is now the executive VP of Basketball Canada.

A high school athlete’s career can have all the staying power of a snowflake, especially after graduation, but it’s not always the case, as it was with Kelsey or Oak Bay’s Dave Kirzinger. An all-star (second and first team) at the ’73 and ’74 Triple-A tournaments, Kirzinger eventually became a first-round draft pick of the Calgary Stampeders and played 10 seasons as an offensive lineman in the Canadian Football League.

Oak Bay’s Chris Trumpy, MVP of the ’73 tournament, later morphed into the deputy minister of finance in the B.C. government. Robbie Parris, a first-team all-star in ’74 for Oak Bay, had his jersey retired after a stellar basketball career at the University of Victoria, where every season he was a Canada West all-star.

Kelly Dukeshire, another Oak Bay star of the ’70s, became a four-time CIAU champion at UVic and played for Canada’s national team. And Ken Kirzinger, Dave’s younger brother and MVP of the ’77 tournament, when Oak Bay won its third provincial title of the decade, turned Hollywood.

A stuntman by trade, the nearly 6-foot-6 Kirzinger became one of the tallest actors to play serial killer Jason Vorhees, when he was cast in the epic slasher movie Freddy vs. Jason (2003).

“It would be hard and unfair to pick out who was the best,” Horwood said. “Let’s put it this way: All of those guys made me.”

He is being overly modest.

Now 66 and retired in Victoria, Horwood went on from Oak Bay to coach at the University of Alberta, where he won nearly 600 games over 26 seasons, three national titles, seven Canada West championships and three CIS coach of the year awards.

In 2009, when Horwood hung up his whistle for good, Edmonton’s mayor, Stephen Mandel, a former high school hoops coach, declared Don Horwood Day to recognize the contributions of the man who contributed mightily to Edmonton’s self-styled but outdated moniker: City of Champions. Oak Bay’s best finish at B.C.’s since the start of the new millennium, however, has been fifth (2007), the same year the tournament was won by Dover Bay of Nanaimo.

A Victoria area school hasn’t reached the final since 2002, when Claremont lost to Kitsilano in the championship game. Both Vancouver Island representatives in the 2013 tournament — Claremont and Belmont — were swept from championship contention Wednesday at the Langley Events Centre.

“I think the biggest change over the years is that we have fewer high school coaches who are actually high school teachers,” Horwood said.

“There are an awful lot of outside coaches, and I think some do a really good job. But when you’re not interacting with the kids you see all day long, it’s hard to build up the enthusiasm and atmosphere in the school when you never set foot in it during the day.”

As might be expected of an extroverted, sociable man who coached with flair, Horwood would get on the PA system at Oak Bay and pump up the student body to remind them how important they were to the school’s basketball success. His passion was infectious, and they followed the team in droves to the B.C.’s, where Horwood’s Bays gave them plenty to cheer about.

“It’s hard to recreate those halcyon days, when everybody was psyched up and the gym was packed every night,” he said. “The B.C.’s today aren’t meaningful for students when they have no history of going to a game in their own gym.”

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